Every commercial building needs efficient HVAC; employees can’t work and customers won’t linger if heating systems fail in the winter or air conditioning units can’t keep up in the summer. As noted by a recent CSE Magazine article, however, there are some facilities—such as laboratories—which have unique HVAC requirements far beyond those of a “typical” business. And while it’s not worth replicating these systems in restaurants or office buildings, it’s worth taking a look at more extreme HVAC examples as a way to improve performance and longevity for all air movement systems.

How efficient is your HVAC unit? According to a recent NIST study, you could spend 30 percent more heating and cooling your home or business if an HVAC system isn’t properly installed. Is it possible to avoid paying more for less?

How hot can it get? Apparently that was the question asked by a team of researchers at Aberystwyth University, who recently designed a furnace that can reach temperatures half as hot as the sun. This kind of “extreme heating” isn’t exactly common but speaks to the evolving nature of HVAC: Hot is no longer “hot enough”—but what happens when temperatures get this crazy?

The East Coast has been brutalized by storm after storm this winter; just as cities like Boston or New York dig out from one blizzard, another is on the horizon. And while spring comes eventually, this means the prospect of significant flooding when the sun finally shines and the snow starts to melt.

Here’s a checklist to help make sure critical HVAC systems stay up and running no matter what.

Air conditioning installs in northern climates are useful—and certainly welcome—during the few months of summer, but aren’t quite a necessity.

In hot and humid areas such as Singapore, meanwhile, lack of reliable HVAC can pose serious problems for residents. But running systems day-and-night during patches of sweltering weather both costs money and wastes heat; now, a team of students has developed a way to reclaim air con waste and reduce spending.

The Eastern seaboard has been hit by a series of massive snowstorms over the last few months, resulting in everything from power outages to flooding and the rise of “snow diving”—ordinarily sane adults jumping off balconies and out of windows into massive snow drifts.

But there’s also an impact for heating and ventilation equipment and companies that serve both residential and commercial installation: Here’s why snow blows for HVAC.

Ideally, hospitals are havens of tidiness and cleanliness—while it’s possible to pick up a nasty infection with a compromised immune system, staff do their very best to ensure every bed is clean and every procedure is sterile.

Sometimes, however, hospital infrastructure won’t play along, causing more than few headaches for doctors and patients. Such is the case at Danville Regional Medical Center, which recently faced a double-whammy: smoke from an overheated vacuum pump, followed by a massive oily discharge.

Experts Tim Robb and Timothy Kane have weighed in on what’s happening in HVAC this year. Now, ACHR News Editor-in-Chief Kyle Gargaro has come up with a few of his own predictions for 2015: Here’s how he sees the market shaping up.

2015 is already upon us, and that means it’s time to tackle HVAC industry predictions for the coming year. First up? Goodway President Timothy Kane and his top 3: Strong HVAC install numbers, the rise of green systems, and increased impact of product innovation. Let’s take a quick look at each one.